–Immigrants: Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley say immigrants will be the main driver of labor force growth. “While the federal government dithers and fumbles, metropolitan areas have to step up on immigration. Metros—collections of economically related cities and suburbs led by networks of elected, civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders—are on the front lines of immigration. Some 85% of the nation’s foreign-born are living in just the 100 largest metropolitan areas. Here are three things that metropolitan leaders should do while immigration reform is stalled in Washington.”

–Jobless Benefits:Chad Stone, Jared Bernstein, Arloc Sherman and Dottie Rosenbaum note that even as unemployment falls, more unemployed lack benefits. “A smaller share of unemployed workers now receive UI for several reasons. One is the length and depth of the protracted jobs slump, which has left many workers unable to find work before their UI benefits run out. In addition, a number of states have cut the number of weeks of regular, state-funded UI benefits in recent years; these changes also shorten the number of weeks of federal UI benefits a person can subsequently receive.”

–Macroprudential Policies:Aerdt Houben and Jan Kakes examine how macroprudential policies could help Europe. “Financial cycles have increasingly diverged across members of the Eurozone. National macroprudential tools are thus key to managing financial imbalances and protecting Europe’s economic integration. This column discusses research suggesting that reasonable macroprudential policies by the GIIPS countries in the euro’s first decade would have helped avoid much pain in Italy, Portugal and Spain. Greece’s public debt problems were far too large and its banks could not have been shielded with macroprudential policies.”

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